1. Field
The following description relates to an apparatus for estimating a position, or a location, of a device, such as a robot, for example, capable of calculating the position of the device by providing an additional feature point in addition to a reference feature point, and a method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
To recognize the position of a robot, various sensors have been used. With regard to an indoor environment, a large amount of research into robot position recognition has been conducted using ultrasonic sensors, infrared sensors, wireless signals, and cameras.
Much research has been conducted using cameras among the various sensors for the benefit of cost and effectiveness, mainly using including a stereo camera, simulating human binocular vision, and a single camera.
Using the camera may significantly reduce the cost in the robot position recognition, but cause a difficulty in matching feature points and calculating a three-dimensional position of a feature point.
Therefore, conventional research has been focused on achieving a robust matching of feature points. In order to calculate the position of the robot, the feature points need to be recognized even when an image is viewed from different directions and different distances, so the feature point matching is important.
If a sufficient amount of feature point matching is achieved, the position of the robot is calculated by mathematical formulas. However, an indoor wall surface lacks feature points, so the number of matched feature points is small and the calculation of the position of the robot is difficult.
Even if calculated using the mathematical formula, the calculation of the position of the robot based on a small amount of matched feature points may produce a wrong result.
That is, in estimating the position of the robot an indoor environment, the number of feature points and the matching of feature points are an emerging issue.